Apollo Missions
The Apollo Missions were a series of manned and unmanned missions to the Moon, the most famous being Apollo 11. Apollo 1 Initially designated AS-204, Apollo 1 was the first instance of human spaceflight in the US Apollo Program. They were supposed to launch on 21st February 1967 and do a low Earth orbital test of the Apollo command and service module but never flew. This was because of a cabin fire during a launch rehearsal at Cape Kennedy Air Force Station Launch Complex 34, on 27th January that killed the three crew members and destroyed the command module. The Apollo 1 was then retired by NASA on 24th April 1967. Crew: Command Pilot - Virgil I. 'Gus' Grissom Senior Pilot - Ed White Lunar Module Pilot - Roger B. Chaffee The Backup crew flew in Apollo 9 and the second Backup crew flew in Apollo 7. Apollo 7 Apollo 7 launched 11th October 1968 and was the first Apollo mission to carry a crew into space and the first US human spaceflight since Gemini XII in 1966. The Apollo 7 crew completed the mission that had originally been laid out by the Apollo 1 crew and made it to Low Earth Orbit, testing the Command and Service Module (CSM). Crew: Commander - Walter M. Schirra Command Module Pilot / Navigator - Donn F. Eisele Lunar Module Pilot / Systems Engineer - R. Walter Cunningham The Backup crew flew Apollo 10. Apollo 8 Apollo 8 was the second manned mission flown by the US Apollo Space program and launched 21st December 1968. The left Low Earth Orbit, reached the Moon, orbited it and then returned. The crew were the first to leave Earth's gravity and witness an Earthrise. They were also the first human spaceflight from Kennedy Space Centre next to Cap Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. The mission was originally supposed to be in early 1969 but the mission profile and date was changed in August 1968 and so the original crew who had been training for the mission became the Apollo 9 crew and the Apollo 8 crew had 2-3 months less training time. Crew: Commander - Frank F. Borman II Command Module Pilot - James A. Lovell Jr Lunar Module Pilot - William A. Anders Micheal Collins (Apollo 11) was replaced by Lovell and the back up crew consisted of Buzz Aldrin (Apollo 11), Neil Armstrong (Apollo 11) and Fred W. Haise Jr (Apollo 13). Apollo 9 Apollo 9 was the third crewed mission Apollo mission and the second with a CSM and Lunar Module (LM) and launched 3rd March 1969. They tested out the LM and cleared it for manned spaceflight as well as doing a space walk crew transfer between the Soyuz 4 and 5. Crew: Commander - James A. McDivitt Command Module Pilot - David R. Scott Lunar Module Pilot - Russell L. 'Rusty' Schweickart The Backup crew became the Apollo 12 prime crew. Apollo 10 Apollo 11 Apollo 11 was the first manned mission to land on the Moon and won the space race between Russia and the United States. Apollo 12 Apollo 13 Apollo 14 Category:Event Category:History Category:NASA Category:Space Agency Category:Space Flight Category:The Moon